


forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots

by wabiisaabi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Terminal Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29545107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wabiisaabi/pseuds/wabiisaabi
Summary: the snow would be beautiful if it were anywhere other than here.at least, that's what bokuto thinks until a boy with cheeks that flush like they're bitten by the snow outside stumbles into his room and changes what remains of his life.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots

The snow would be beautiful if it were anywhere other than here.   
  
This thought is a bitter one, stinging his brain with a venom. It is, however, a truthful realization. It is not much more than a thought that would become a regular for him, a part of the newfound background noise of wheeled gurneys and monitors, knocks on the door and the clicking of footsteps past it. As Bokuto watches the snow fall down to stick to the patio of the hospital courtyard, he can’t help but sulk about how nice it would be if he were watching it stick to the road from the window of his classroom--a classroom that he would never return to. A classroom filled with students that would likely turn towards his empty desk and wonder just where he went without ever receiving an explanation; then again, he doesn’t really have the explanation for why he’s here, either.   
  
He doesn’t know why he’s dying, or how. He just knows that he is.   
  
Bokuto didn’t catch the name of his doctor nor the details of his diagnosis--he checked out after hearing the prognosis. That prognosis rings painfully in his ears in every moment of unoccupied silence, in every moment he is left alone, just as it has been since he heard it earlier that day. It is an earworm he despises more than a tune he can’t quite pinpoint enough to look up, a melody without lyrics. It is an ache worse than a pounding migraine or a torn muscle, and it garners a fear more unsettling than not being able to play volleyball due to either ailment, yet both pale in comparison to what he suffers from now.   
  
The dark sky above his new confines warns him of the upcoming bleak monotony that will be the rest of his life. The lack of stars reminds him that it only gets darker from here. Bokuto heaves a sigh, pressing his fingertips into his eyes, rubbing the blur away from them. He has become accustomed to the way they prick with the pins and needles of stillness despite the motion of daily life. He has become accustomed to the way he can’t seem to get his eyes to focus on anything too well anymore. He has become accustomed to the way that walking now feels like a chore, and he’d be lying if he were to say he didn’t notice how difficult volleyball has become. Bokuto got used to the way the world would spin when he got up too fast, and he’s now accustomed to the way the world still spins now even when he takes his time, the way that his words never seem to come out as comfortably or roll off the tongue the way they once did. But Bokuto, in this pessimistic and downtrodden state he’s left in this evening, doesn’t think he will ever become accustomed to the discomfort of a hospital bed.   
  
He doesn’t think he will ever get used to the sterile scent of the air, the stinging cleanliness of the sheets, the way the blankets aren’t very warm but the room is never very cold. The bars beside him are foreign and make him feel cradled like a child in ways that are far from comforting, a macabre crib to enclose him in for his last days in the same way a pretty blue one did for his first--blue, or was it green? Maybe it was yellow?   
  
He’s not sure. And frankly, with his mind so set on this whole dying thing, he doesn’t have it in him to care.   
  
Bokuto sinks down into the bed that will never be comfortable, between rails that will never feel safe. He looks at the snow outside again; it’s coming down hard now. He can’t help but think about how happy he’d be upon noticing that it’s sticking, about what he’d do with his snow day if he were at school and about how excited he’d be to return the following day.   
  
As he pulls the sheets that are not very warm up to his chin, even in a room that is not very cold, he can’t help but feel freezing.   
  
Freezing, as if he was left alone in the blizzard outside with nothing but his own skin to warm him.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Come morning, the snow has stopped. It must’ve come down all night, though, because the wilted flowers in the dirt of the courtyard are buried in a blanket of serene white. It is far too calm for Bokuto’s liking--far too bland. _What if it were neon green?_ He muses. _If it were bright blue, would that make this any less boring?_   
  
The only places to look are at the TV that plays nothing good, at the machines beside his bed, or outside. He settles with looking out at the courtyard and pretending with all his might that the window he’s looking through is at the top floor of his highschool, that the window he’s looking through is the open doors to the gym. He imagines his teammates playing in the snow. He imagines himself with them. But all of this imagining just makes it feel more impossible, which just makes him feel worse, and he crosses his arms with a huff and a dejected pout.   
  
It is in the midst of his gloomy boredom that something interesting happens.   
  
He snaps his head around with as much speed as he can still muster in his body upon hearing the door open and close. Much to his surprise, standing there at his doorway is not the doctor he was expecting. Standing there instead is a boy who looks to be about his age, tall and slim, soft black curls falling just barely over his forehead and steel blue eyes framed with gorgeous lashes.   
  
Bokuto doesn’t know who this boy is, but _boy,_ is he pretty. He can’t stop himself from staring.   
  
The stranger clears his throat, straightening up before he speaks.   
  
“Sorry,” he says, and his voice sounds like sweet molasses and honey in the sunlight, golden perfection and flowing purity, “I must’ve gotten my numbers mixed up…”   
  
Bokuto blinks owlishly at him, struggling to gather his words like he’d dropped them upon bumping headfirst into splendor. “Don’t apologize, it’s okay!” He flashes the mystery man a smile and a thumbs up. He doesn’t hesitate in following it up with, “you know, you’re _really_ pretty!”   
  
The stranger’s porcelain cheeks heat up with the prettiest warmth, the warmth of cheeks bitten by winter after a day of making snow angels, the splotches of color on the ripest parts of a summer peach. He may as well be the summer and the winter and the whole year round, and he just happened to stumble into Bokuto’s room. The way Bokuto’s heart thrums contests the mocking chortle of the starless sky overhead last night. His heart screams, ‘ _take that,’_ because this stranger just might be the stars he was searching for.   
  
“Ah--” he stammers, his gaze, painted with the depths of the ocean, casting downward. “Thank you. I--I should get going now. But--could you point me in the direction of room...412?”   
  
Bokuto’s smile doesn’t fade in intensity, but it shifts from welcoming to sheepish as he thinks about it. “It’s to the right! Or…is it to the left? Craaap, I’m not sure…”   
  
The stranger’s lips quirk upward in the ghost of a smile. “Oh, that’s fine--thanks anyway.”   
  
Bokuto nods, and although he definitely wasn’t any help, that little smile sent his way is enough to make him feel like he brought about world peace. Of course, it was likely an obligatory expression, but this doesn’t register in his mind in the slightest as he hears soft footsteps that once came in go back out, to the right, to the left, and then back to the right.   
  
He thinks about ripe summer peaches. He thinks about the feeling of cheeks being bitten with frosty air and snow angels. He thinks about the ocean, the mystery of its depths, the mystery of this stranger. The earworm that screamed in grating tones, an unpleasant reminder of his fate, now hums pleasantly. It sings crescendos. All day long, the butterfly it has become serenades him, and all those spots in his brain that stung have been bandaged just for now.   
  
That night, there are stars in the sky. Bokuto counts them, each and every one--or attempts to do that as best as he can. There must be four-hundred and twelve, he guesses, but he falls asleep after counting around twenty of them and dreams of the boy he swears hung them there.   
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


He’s looking out at the snow again when he hears the knock at the door.   
  
Bokuto turns, expecting a doctor, just like yesterday.   
  
The deep-sea gaze that meets his own fills him with the joy of Christmas morning; the stranger is the biggest gift beneath the tree.   
  
“You’re back!” He says excitedly, not questioning it, not questioning the stranger or the feelings he brings him. Bokuto does not question his feelings. He just feels them, wholly and truly, and he feels wholly and truly joyful right now.   
  
“I’m back.” The ghost of a smile from yesterday seems to haunt his features like they are a creaky mansion of untold history. Bokuto would haunt those features too, those delicate points and soft curves, cheeks to cup that flush like they’re ripe and a smile that shimmers like moonlight. In his hands the mystery man holds a vase of flowers--beautiful flowers, purple and blue and white, and although Bokuto cannot name a single one he appreciates them as though they are his children without even confirming that they’re meant for him.   
  
_But who else would they be for?_ He thinks. _Who else_ , he thinks, as though the stranger had meant to stumble into his room yesterday, as though this visitor was his.   
  
“I’m sorry for barging in on you yesterday,” honey-molasses drips from the stranger’s tongue, “I brought flowers. Your room seems a little dull.”   
  
The stranger is not incorrect. The room is lackluster, bright hospital lights and the impersonal feel of cold tile. Bokuto hates it, really. His own room at home is distinctly his, a contrasting collection of colors with flashy wall decor and volleyball trophies and his middle school uniform all hung up. This hospital room makes a mockery of what a real bedroom should look like.   
  
He would probably never choose flowers to decorate his room, but they’re from the prettiest boy he has ever seen. They’re a gift, just for him.   
  
“Oh, wow, thank you!” Bokuto exclaims. His shaky hands reach to grab the vase to place it on the small table beside him. They are unsuccessful in gripping it properly, and it almost drops, spilling precious life onto his lap with the water that fuels it. The stranger seems to pick up on this, gently taking the vase and placing it on top of the table for him.   
  
Bokuto is beaming. The stranger’s lips part to shine moonlight through that ghost of a smile--in fact, it’s something close to a grin that tugs at the corners of his mouth. Bokuto admires this smile, this almost-grin, eyes poring over the little gaps between each individual tooth, the lines on his perfectly-hydrated lips. His gaze migrates upward along the curve of his cheek, the smooth plane of his flawless skin, the sharp and groomed look of his brows.   
  
It occurs to him then, as he is admiring each and every feature of the pretty boy’s face, that he has yet to ask for a name to put to it. He wonders what type of name someone so gorgeous could have, and briefly expects the stranger may just be some kind of angel. Maybe he goes by something cool, like a number, or a single letter. 

  
“What’s your name, by the way?” Bokuto decides it can’t hurt to ask, already thinking of a million things it could be.   
  
“It’s Akaashi. Akaashi Keiji.”   
  
Bokuto’s guesses were all wrong. None of them even came close to the cherry-blossom-beauty at the peak of spring that is every syllable of ‘Akaashi Keiji.’   
  
“Nice to meet you, Akaashi Keiji!” The name tastes sweet like sugar, cane sugar and buttercream, frosting on a cake, a rich dessert glaze. “I’m Bokuto Koutarou!”   
  
“Likewise, Bokuto Koutarou,” the stranger--Akaashi--responds. They look at each other for a moment before Akaashi turns back towards the door, and Bokuto feels like his tree is being uprooted, dirt and bugs dug up with it. Although he hardly knows this boy, he feels the dependence of a sprout to the sunlight, the reliance of these beautiful flowers beside him on the water in their vase.   
  
Akaashi gives a courtesy bow before walking out.   
  
Bokuto feels some of his stars leave along with him.   
  
And yet, still, he gushes the brightness of galaxies to his mother when she visits later that day and asks where the flowers came from. He gushes like a geyser and sings the choir of August crickets like Akaashi took each and every one of his veins, every fiber of his muscles, every square inch of his skin and crafted them all just for him. And after she leaves, he thinks all about those flowers, rehearsing the names he’d learned from her over and over.   
  
_“_ Belladonna, bittersweet, columbine,” Bokuto says it once out loud and twice more in his head, “pansies, lavender, forget-me-nots.”   
  
_Forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots_ . It becomes a chant in his thoughts.   
  
_I will not forget you ever, Akaashi Keiji._   
  


  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Akaashi is the new earworm; even his name is a record loop of its own in Bokuto’s CD-player of a brain. He is all Bokuto thinks about now. He looks at the snow and thinks of wanting to throw it at Akaashi, have it thrown back at him, laugh and make a snowman together. He looks at the sky, at the stars, and thinks about how they could never glimmer in a way that would begin to compare to the sparkles of Akaashi’s eyes.   
  
Bokuto doesn’t actually hear the soft footsteps he usually would this time because he’s so lost in thought, but it’s his third full day in the hospital, and Akaashi is back. He doesn’t come with flowers this time, but Bokuto thinks he could find each and every color of a bouquet at it’s finest in the painting of Akaashi’s beauty, so he doesn’t mind. His tree has been replanted. His roots feel firm. Bokuto is blossoming in the sunlight and drinking every drop of water provided to his flowers, overjoyed to be in Akaashi’s presence for not one, not two, but _three days_ in a row now.   
  
“How are the flowers doing?” Akaashi asks.   
  
“Great! They’re doing great.”   
  
Bokuto twinkles at Akaashi, grins from ear to ear. Akaashi’s smile is not just a ghost this time--he isn’t grinning, but it isn’t the subtle look of a gentle pull at the corners of his lips, either. It feels genuine and real. It feels warm, warm like hot chocolate on a cold day.   
  
“That’s great,” Akaashi’s eyes scan the vase, looking over each and every petal. “I’m glad you like them.”   
  
“I _love_ them,” Bokuto is about a millisecond away from interrupting Akaashi. “I even memorized all their names!”   
  
Shaking hands point at each flower, calling out each name in the way that kindergartners call out the names of colors pointed out to them. Even with the double-vision that comes and goes, Bokuto can still accurately pick out each flower, and he can also recognize the way that Akaashi’s eyes glimmer with what looks like pride.   
  
Or maybe Bokuto just loves the feeling of people being proud of him far too much.   
  
He doesn’t consider that option, though.   
  
Today, Akaashi doesn’t leave so quickly. He stays, he _actually stays_ with Bokuto like a real visitor would instead of someone who wanted to briefly apologize for a mix up. Bokuto feels like he’s known Akaashi forever and all they talk about is the flowers, a mutual interest in volleyball, and their thoughts on the snow. Somehow, these three topics and the occasional semi-related divergence carry them to the beginnings of sunset, only the very tips of a fiery end licking the cool blue of oncoming evening.   
  
Akaashi must notice the dejected look in Bokuto’s eyes when he starts getting ready to leave, because he pulls out a grin--a real _grin_ \--before saying his parting words for the day.   
  
“I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?” His voice is the gentle scent of lavender, the look of a dancing flame, goosebumps and soft shivers, the coziness of a knitted scarf. “I’ll come back the day after, too.”   
  
“And again after that?”   
  
“And again after that.”   
  
“Do you promise?” Bokuto says, his devotion to Akaashi clear as day through his words as if they’re little more than a pane of untouched glass.   
  
“Yes, I do,” there is a clear genuineness in his tone, not that Bokuto would ever think to question Akaashi’s legitimacy. “I promise.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Akaashi holds true to his promise.   
  
He visits every day without fail. Often, he is there just as Bokuto is waking up as if they are sharing a consciousness, as if he gets a notification on his phone when the other is awake.   
  
Bokuto had once said it must be because they’re soulmates.  
  
Akaashi didn’t deny the possibility.   
  
Bokuto starts to feel the same certainty in Akaashi’s presence that one may feel in the guarantee of night before a new morning. Akaashi is the closest to a breath of fresh morning air that Bokuto gets, untainted by gasoline, uninterrupted by engines. He is the silver lining in Bokuto’s misfortune and a reprieve from the unpleasant symptoms associated with it. Akaashi is a reprieve even as they begin to worsen.   
  
Each day seems to present a new challenge. Some days, the bouquet beside his bed looks like paint splotches, the whole room a blur; other days, it looks like there are three vases on his bedside table. His body shakes and prickles with pins-and-needles. He struggles to do most things he used to do with ease. It is difficult for someone as loud as Bokuto has always been to be silenced. His tongue feels thick with accumulated words; his mind, however, struggles to grasp onto coherent phrases.   
  
Still, there are days where it isn’t so bad. And even on the days where it is, Akaashi is there.   
  
Akaashi is _always_ _there_ just like he said he’d be, and for that, Bokuto is unendingly grateful.   
  
The doctors don’t even spare Akaashi a glance anymore, used to his presence leaning against the wall, sitting up on the heater by the window, on the edge of Bokuto’s bed. He leaves just before Bokuto’s parents arrive each night, heading home as the first stars appear in the sky, just in time for dinner. (With Akaashi around, Bokuto feels he is in the presence of stars at all hours of the day. He still has not managed to count the stars in the sky, but he has counted each beauty mark visible on Akaashi’s body, each scar, each line of his palms and each crease of his knuckles.)   
  
Although it’s gotten difficult to speak, Bokuto still musters the strength each night to gush about Akaashi to his family. He tells them all about how they met at least twice a week; he often forgets the stories he’s told. They don’t seem to mind.   
  
On the nights where a strangling feeling of sadness, a sense of oncoming doom settles over the room, Bokuto wishes Akaashi could be there with him and brighten their day just like he brightens his.   
  
“It’s crazy, like...like we’re like the same person or something, he just _knows_ when I’m awake,” he tells them on one of those somber nights, “I think we’re soulmates! I told him that, you know, and he didn’t say _no,_ so…”  
  
He looks down at his hands, counts the lines on his palms, thinks about how nicely the other boy’s slim fingers would fit between his trembly ones. He imagines the feeling of another’s hand in his, and wonders if Akaashi’s hands are cold or warm, if his grip is loose or tight. He wonders if Akaashi would run his thumb along Bokuto’s knuckles. He wonders what it would feel like to run his thumb along Akaashi’s. 

That night, counting the stars, he gets up to forty-one, the same number of creases in both of Akaashi’s palms. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


For a while, it had been easy to deny that he’s dying.  
  
But this week has been really difficult, and now, Bokuto’s not so sure.   
  
He’s getting really sick of it, how horrible he feels all the time. How doing the thing he’s come to love most--talking to Akaashi, that is--has become so difficult for him. How it’s hard to do something as simple as using the bathroom now. The earworm has become spiders crawling under his skin, crickets that screech too close to his eardrums. His brain stings all over again.   
  
Bokuto is dying. There’s nothing that can be done for him.   
  
He drops his head, sniffling as tears pool in his eyes.   
  
“Bokuto-san.”   
  
He picks his head up immediately at that familiar voice.   
  
“Akaashi!”   
  
Akaashi smiles sympathetically at him; Bokuto returns the expression weakly. They stay like that for a moment before the sick boy’s expression falls again and the pools of tears spill over. They spill now not just because he is dying, but because the fact that he’s dying means he won’t get to spend the rest of his life with the beautiful boy standing before him.   
  
“What’s wrong?” Akaashi asks, sugar-sweet, a warm mug of tea offered to him, a comforting hug. He sits tentatively at the foot of the bed.   
  
Bokuto’s tongue feels thick again, this time with emotion, not illness. The words come out slurred and slow and quiet when he figures out what it is he wants to say. “I can’t...spend time with you.”   
  
“What do you mean? We’re spending time together right now.”   
  
“But not forever,” Bokuto shakes his head. A sob shakes his body. “Not always.”   
  
Akaashi reaches out to place a hand on Bokuto’s knee, running his thumb over the skin there, silently urging the other to go on.   
  
“I just…I’m dying, ‘kaashi. Dying...fast. And I’m scared.”   
  
“Well,” Akaashi starts, “you’re not dead yet. You still have time.”

  
“But not enough time.”   
  
  
“So let’s cherish what we have.”   
  
_  
Cherish. _ Bokuto doesn’t really know what that word means, but it sounds pretty. He’ll have to look it up on his phone later, he thinks, before it hits him just how difficult typing is now, too, and the tears start falling all over again. Bokuto tries to wipe them away, but for each one he swipes at there are three more that fall. That frustrates him enough for a fourth to come, too, so he gives up trying to dry them and instead sits still, letting the tears toss him like the waves of a wild sea. He feels lost in the middle of an ocean of grief, a boat of well-being sinking rapidly as he fights for air. There is no land in sight, a gray mist hanging too heavy in the air for Bokuto to see anything if there is anything out there to see.   
  


And then, suddenly, he is pulled into a hug. The boat still sinks, but Bokuto suddenly feels as if he’s able to swim, like the sea has calmed. He is still lost in it; there is no escape. But he can breathe, just for a moment. Akaashi’s embrace is warm and comforting. Akaashi’s embrace feels like home, a home warmed by a heater with stew on the stove, grounding and steady, calm and serenity.   
  
“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi’s voice is quiet now, but his words speak volumes, “it’s okay. We have enough time for me to hug you right now. Cherish that.”  
  
There it is again, that word. _Cherish._   
  
“I cherish you, ‘kaashi,” Bokuto doesn’t need to know what ‘cherish’ means to know that sentence sounds _right._ His eyes flutter closed as he leans into the other boy.  
  
Akaashi hums, chuckling softly. He rocks Bokuto gently in his arms, brushing his thumb against his cheek. “I cherish you too, Bokuto-san.”  
  
Bokuto must’ve drifted off after that, because when he opens his eyes again, Akaashi is gone.   
  
When a nurse comes in to take his vitals that night, he asks her, “What’s ‘cherish’ mean?”  
  
She looks contemplative for a moment as she watches the blood pressure cuff, thinking about a way to put it. “It means to love something, or hold dear. If you really, really care about something...then you cherish it.”  
  
The nurse removes the cuff from his arm as she smiles at him--it’s hard not to. Bokuto is beaming.   
  
“Does that make sense?” She asks, placing the cuff in the vital cart.   
  
Bokuto nods enthusiastically, thanking her. In that moment, he feels proud of himself, because he _did_ use the word right.  
  
There is nobody in this world that he loves more than Akaashi Keiji.   
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
The snow in the courtyard has melted.   
  
It’s getting warmer outside. It’s far from hot, but it is nowhere near freezing, not that Bokuto would know. It’s been about three months since he was first admitted to the hospital, but the bed has never become comfortable. His parents brought him a blanket from home a few days after his admission, though, so the sheets that are not warm enough are no longer a concern.   
  
He’s become noseblind to the way the air reeks of sterilization, and the bars on either side of him have never proven to be as much of a problem as he thought they would be. They leave enough room for Akaashi to sit at the foot of the bed as he is now, and that’s all that matters to Bokuto, the ability to spend time with the love of his life.   
  
The love of his life, he’s sure of it. The boy he cherishes most in the world--he hasn’t been able to get that word out of his head since first hearing it. He cherishes Akaashi like he cherishes the flowers beside his bed that have yet to wilt, bright and beautiful just the same as the day he received them.   
  
Catching his gaze, Akaashi speaks, “the flowers are still doing very well.”

“Yes,” Bokuto’s voice is quieter now. He chooses his words carefully with the knowledge that his capabilities are limited. “They are.”  
  
He turns his head to face Akaashi, leaning forward with much difficulty. Bokuto raises a hand that comes to rest on Akaashi’s cheek, his arm trembling with a tremor that hasn’t gone away since his second month here. Slowly, his hazel eyes close as he grins. “Pretty...like you, ‘kaashi.” Bokuto feels Akaashi place his hand atop his own. It’s cold, he notes--temperate, rather, the way he assumes the air outside might be. Not freezing, not at all, but not warm, either.   
  
“Thank you, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi’s gratefulness is clearly audible in his voice. Bokuto has become well acquainted with the other’s moonlight smile, subtly beautiful, a perfect addition to his perfect landscape of a face.   
  
As he sinks back against the pillows and opens his eyes, taking in that moonlight and those shimmering blue orbs that sparkle like stars, the thick foliage of eyelashes and the soft clouds of blush, Bokuto does not hesitate to speak his mind. “I love you, ‘kaashi.”   
  
Akaashi’s expression seems to falter for a moment, and for just a moment, Bokuto fears he’s made a mistake. But then, something magical seems to happen, something that feels like a knight in shining armor coming to save him from the pits of hell like he is a damsel in distress, a princess in a tower--a grin that shines in a way more akin to that of the sun appears on the other’s face. A giggle like feathers and tickles and soft pillows, a new day’s breeze brushing curtains on a late spring morning slips past his lips, and deep sea eyes toss with waves that surfers pray for on a perfect summer day. They shimmer with the light of a shooting star, dragging light across his gaze. On it, Bokuto wishes for Akaashi to return his feelings, and in moments, his wish is granted.   
  
“I love you too, Bokuto-san.”   
  
Akaashi shifts to hover over Bokuto in a swift and seamless manner, and before Bokuto can ask what he’s doing, he is pulled into a kiss. The way Akaashi’s lips fit fills all of the cracks of his own chapped ones, completing his puzzle, putting together all of the pieces he was shattered into when he first heard the news of his disease. Bokuto takes one of Akaashi’s hands, temperate and slim, and each of their fingers slot together perfectly in just the way he’d imagined, just the way he’d hoped.   
  
It feels as though the shooting stars in Akaashi’s eyes are now overhead in broad daylight, and Bokuto would not wish away his disease upon a single one.   
  
After all, it was from the dirt of his misfortune that the most beautiful of flowers blossomed. It is from the depths of his heart that his love is growing, growing past his chest and into the open, branches sewn in green and rustled in the breeze.   
  
The beginning of leaves budding on the trees outside could not be any more beautiful than it is here. Here, with Akaashi. Here, with the love of his life.   
  
He cherishes each and every leaf. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Bokuto can remember the names of each and every one of the flowers beside his bed.  
  
Bokuto cannot remember the faces of his own family.   
  
His condition has been declining rapidly since he confessed his love to Akaashi, and he almost finds himself wishing away his illness on one of those daylight stars that appeared during their miracle eclipse. Bokuto can no longer lift his arms to stroke Akaashi’s cheek, nor can he brush his own fringe out of his face. He speaks barely above a whisper, making visiting hours unproductive.   
  
The people who visit him in the night always seem so frustrated.   
  
He wishes he had the words to reassure them.   
  
Akaashi sits beside him today once more--Akaashi Keiji, whom Bokuto has never forgotten, just as he’d promised to himself. _Forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots._  
  
He’s thinking about the flowers, fingers intertwined with Akaashi’s as the room is painted gold by the sunset outside. The sun slips down a soft blue canvas, leaving pink and orange and yellow, vibrant flames in its wake. Bokuto is more interested in the blues, purples, whites of the bouquet--it is only blues, purples, and whites now, as his vision is now far from what it once was.   
  
He’s thinking about flowers and lost in his head when he is abruptly yanked from his place of peace by yelling outside of his door. The sound of gurneys and machines wheeling along tile, footsteps dragging, walking, and running in the hall have all become normal. They became a standard background noise for Bokuto months ago. But yelling, yelling has always been a rarity. Since his admission, the closest he’s heard are the cries of those who have loved and lost.   
  
This is a different sound, though. A voice that sounds familiar is responsible for the noise, but he can’t seem to pinpoint where he’s heard it from. He can’t pinpoint the fact that it is his own mother.   
  
Still, he _can_ pick up on the words that are said.   
  
_“He’s losing his mind!”_   
  
The doctor’s responses are unintelligible, nothing above mumbles.   
  
_“He can’t recognize his own family anymore! Can’t you do something?”_ _  
_ _  
_Bokuto turns towards the door, trying to make out something of the doctor’s reply. His attempts are futile.  
  
 _“All he thinks about is that damn Akaashi!”_ _  
_ _  
_His eyes widen, fixating on the door and the shadows cast beneath it by the two standing outside. _Akaashi. Why doesn’t she like Akaashi?_ Bokuto struggles to figure out why anyone could say a beautiful word like a name written in cherry blossom petals in the soft glow of lanterns with such venom, such bitterness.   
  
_“He’s not real! He’s not real!”_  
  
Not real? Not real? Incoherent mumbles do little to provide context. _  
_ _  
_ _“My son is in love with a hallucination!”_  
  
The sun seems to fall fast, because suddenly, the room is dark. The room is dark as Bokuto turns to Akaashi, Akaashi who is little more than splotches of shadowed color.   
  
“What...not real? ‘Kaashi,” his voice comes out barely above a whisper. It feels as if it cannot come close to penetrating the heavy feeling in the room.   
  
“I have no clue what she’s talking about, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi’s voice sounds uncharacteristically monotone. There is no moon nor sun in his words, no light but no darkness. It is not honey nor is it sugar cane, it is not summer or winter. 

Bokuto’s breath comes out in pants. Desperate pants, each gasp clinging to the oxygen it can reach and dragging it down into his lungs that don’t seem to fill, lungs that are not satisfied. His eyes sting, they sting in a way that says his vision should be blurred, but his vision cannot blur worse than it does in the darkness. He can make out Akaashi’s figure leaning forward to hug him.  
  
He tries to picture a ship safe from rolling tides, a house built above a tsunami, beneath the reaches of a hurricane.   
  
Around him, he feels nothing but cold. The air of a room that is not too hot, not too cold, the sterile scent of hospital, a lap covered in a blanket from home that suddenly seems like sheets that are far too thin to provide warmth.   
  
He feels freezing. Freezing, as if he was left alone in a blizzard outside with nothing but his own skin to warm him.   
  
“‘Kaashi,” Bokuto chokes out. “Can’t...can’t feel your hug. Why can’t--why can’t I feel you?”   
  
He reaches out, trying to find a fistful of Akaashi’s shirt, the feeling of his soft locks, but there is nothing before him, nothing but thin air. All that rests in his lap is a blanket, and beside him is a vase of wilted flowers, or what he must guess to be wilted as the colors are no longer vibrant and bright. He can’t pick out a single one, and reaching for them with trembling hands, he finds that petals crumble in his grasp.  
  
The vase falls when he tries to grab it, hitting the linoleum and shattering on impact. The rails beside him trap him--his own body traps him, disobedient, not moving in the way he wishes it would, wishes it _could._ He cannot breathe, choked by belladonnas and bittersweets, pansies and forget-me-nots. _Forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots_.  
  
The door swings open at the sound of the crash. Arms envelope him, but they provide no comfort. They are no refuge in the midst of war, because they don’t belong to Akaashi. He fights the grasp, but he cannot seem to wiggle free, in the same way that his lungs fight for oxygen but cannot seem to breathe.   
  
The sky outside must be starless, he thinks, as the room becomes pitch black. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
It’s been a week since Bokuto last saw Akaashi.   
  
He tells himself each day that he will wish on the stars for his love to return, but there are never stars in the sky--none that he can make out, as he may as well be blind in the night. In the day, he receives many visitors. Upon rubbing his eyes, they disappear. None of them are Akaashi, and of this, he is certain--he does not need good vision to make out his love at first sight.   
  
He can no longer recognize any of his family members at all, and most nights, he assumes they are hallucinations and spares them little more than a glance. There is only one person he wishes to see; at this point, he doesn’t care if he really sees him or not. Even as a hallucination, Akaashi felt so _real_ .   
  
The taste of his lips, subtly sweet; the sound of his voice, honey and molasses; his hands, temperate, not cold, not hot. All forty-one creases in his palms, the sixteen lines on the knuckles of his right hand and the mole on the top of his left, it was _real_ . Even if Akaashi _did_ disappear that night, Bokuto refuses to believe he made it all up.   
  
He thinks about ripe summer peaches, cheeks bitten by frosty air, snow angels. He thinks about the ocean and the beach, summer breezes and curtains blowing in them, branches sewn in green and shooting stars in broad daylight, and _god,_ he wishes he could see one now. A shooting star, a fallen eyelash--he wishes he could read the time ‘11:11’ and make a wish on it, make a thousand.   
  
Bokuto knows now what he has. The name appears in his thoughts when he tries hard enough to remember it. _Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease._ The doctor explained it to him after he broke the vase, the vase he cherished so deeply. He could explain it to his classmates if they caught him on the right day, the ones who probably peer at his desk and wonder when he’ll come back, wonder where he went. He could explain it, but it must be telepathically, because speaking has become impossible. 

Some days, he feels as though his whole class is in the room with him, watching him from places he cannot see. These days, he fights to breathe again, just like the night he did when Akaashi left him, when Akaashi _disappeared._ The fear he feels cannot compare to any fear he’s felt before. He cannot explain why; he could not even if he was still capable of speech.   
  
When these episodes pass, Bokuto almost wishes that his old class was in the room with him, because he feels more alone than he ever has in his life.   
  
His macabre crib does not comfort him, and neither does a hug from the mother he cannot recognize. There is nothing to comfort him left anymore, not even himself. His thoughts don’t come in coherently. Sometimes, Bokuto can’t figure out his own name.   
  
It’s been a week since Bokuto last saw Akaashi.   
  
That night, he does not dream. There are no stars, because there was never a boy to hang them there. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


It is on a day that he can no longer lift his head to try and make out the figures that appear in his room that Bokuto knows it is the end.   
  
It comes peacefully, in a wave of orange and white. It comes in the colors of wallflowers and butterfly weed, the white of chrysanthemum and snapdragons and zinnias. He can picture these flowers filling his lungs, although he cannot name them, as his gasps become unable to get a grip on the sterile oxygen they need.   
  
His ending is bittersweet, like the flower in his precious posy. The feeling of death is one he’s sure he will not forget in the afterlife.

  
At first, it’s scary, the inability to breathe. But as splotches of orange and white fill the room around him, as he feels weeds growing in his chest, the pain seems to stop. The pain in his joints, the shake of his arms, it seems to fade and go, dragged out by the undertow of familiar ocean. Akaashi’s ocean--Akaashi, Akaashi who he still has not forgotten.   
  
Akaashi, who he hopes he’ll see again, whether he’s real or not.   
  
Bokuto wants to see him one last time. He at least wants to say goodbye, if he must.   
  
Around him, the world erupts into chaos. Wheels of machines, footsteps running, the wheeling of his gurney--background noise. It’s background noise.   
  
He closes his eyes and finds that the orange behind them is no different from his vision with them open, and he smiles. He smiles as he thinks of sunlight. He thinks of moonlight. He thinks of stars overhead, and he wonders how many are really out there, if it’s forty-one or four-hundred and twelve.   
  
He wonders if he’ll be one. If he’ll be a star, or a flower, if he’ll be a tree or the grass around it, if he’ll be a bittersweet, if he’ll be a forget-me-not.   
  
Bokuto tries to inhale, picturing the rustling of butterfly weeds in his lungs.   
  
He exhales the last of his life, wilting like his beautiful bouquet. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The beginning of spring would be beautiful, Akaashi thinks bitterly, if it were anywhere other than here.   
  
After all, nobody wants to spend their Friday night at a wake--especially not with a context like this. When he was informed by a doctor that he was needed for a ‘private conversation,’ Akaashi initially assumed his dad had passed; his dad, who was admitted four months ago and seemed to be on the up-and-up. To say he was confused was an understatement.   
  
Frankly, looking down at his suit now and brushing off lint that isn’t there, Akaashi can’t say he feels any more enlightened. It’s a story that he’ll probably tell for shock value a few years from now with his coworkers. It will certainly sound interesting processing this in the impersonal atmosphere of a new therapist’s office.   
  
He looks down at the flowers in his hands: blue, white, and purple, a familiar selection. Truthfully, when he brought this bouquet to a boy he’d barged in on four months ago, he did not expect this outcome.   
  
It’s still setting in, that the boy in that bed was dying and fell in love with a hallucination of him. He wonders how far they’d gotten in their fictional relationship. Were they dating? Had they kissed? He thinks back to how the boy had looked then, newly admitted with a tan glow to his skin and a bright smile, with a voice that was loud and passionate, salt and firecrackers and warm like a bonfire. He thinks about him, and he briefly thinks that he wouldn’t have minded being with him.   
  
He wouldn’t have minded visiting a third time, or a fourth.   
  
Akaashi feels the most twisted sense of longing, a warped regret, a feeling he never would’ve imagined he could feel until right now, this moment, and he sighs frustratedly as he tries to get his brain to shut up for a minute. His eyes, deep sea, shimmering with tears instead of stars, tumultuous waves and riptides, scan the room. The casket is open, and most people are away from it, chatting instead of saying their goodbyes. Perhaps they already have. Perhaps they’re just as unwilling, unready, uneasy as Akaashi is.   
  
He gulps to steel himself, approaching the casket, bouquet in hand. His other hand plays with the hem of his sleeve. Anxiety wells in his chest as his lungs struggle to fill with air that seems to strangle him, trying to get in a deep breath. Akaashi knows that if he deliberates any longer, he’ll freak out and give up and run away, and something tells him he’ll regret it deeply if he doesn’t say goodbye to the boy that some version of him loved.   
  
_“You know, you’re really pretty!”_ _  
_ _  
_ He takes a step forward.   
  
_His eyes, they were so bright. He looked at me like I’d hung every star in the sky, like I was the sun and the moon and the axis the earth spun on._ _  
_ _  
_ Another, and Akaashi realizes his legs are trembling.   
  
_“You’re back!”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“I’m back.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _He looked so happy, like a kid on Christmas, like he just got the puppy he’d asked for. It was endearing. He was endearing. He seemed so warm. I bet he gave great hugs._ _  
_ _  
_ Another step. His eyes sting with tears that threaten to fall.   
  
_“Nice to meet you, Akaashi Keiji!”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Likewise, Bokuto Koutarou.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _He said my name like it was the prettiest word he’d ever heard. He said it with love even on that first day._   
  
Akaashi’s a step away from the casket. He feels stuck where he is, then, unable to move, glued to his spot by a bond he never formed. The cold knife of guilt presses against his throat. The noose of fear tries to pull him backward. He looks up, trying to blink away the tears blurring his vision.   
  
_“Oh, wow, thank you!”_ _  
_ _  
_ _Did he even like flowers? I never bothered to ask. I left so fast. How could I have known he’d fall in love with the idea of me like that? How could I have known?_ _  
_ _  
_ Akaashi takes the final step forward. The body in the casket is pale and gaunt. He looks emaciated, almost. This boy in front of him is not the boy who spoke his name in the color of fireworks and the brightness of sparklers, this boy is not the boy who couldn’t remember which direction was descending, this boy is not the boy who treated flowers like precious metal. This boy was not the boy that drank his features with those hazel eyes like he was dying of thirst. This boy was not the boy that carried the sun in his heart and beamed rays of sunshine with his smile.   
  
Akaashi’s cheeks are soaked with tears as they fall freely now, the sea of his eyes spilling over cheeks that flush in ways he would never hear appreciated out loud. Akaashi will never know about the ripe summer peaches and the snow angels, the honey and molasses. Akaashi will never know about the stars, and the lines in his hands. He will never know the way that Bokuto imagined a birthmark on the top of his left palm instead of the one on the heel of his right, the way that Bokuto held hands that were warmer than his.   
  
Akaashi will never know that their lips fit perfectly against each other, that their fingers slot together like puzzle pieces.   
  
He thinks about all he must have missed out on to overlook a spark like that, and then curses himself for thinking so deeply about a boy he never knew, feeling awful for never knowing him. He thinks about all the world will miss out on to lose a spark with eyes that still shone like that in a hospital room. Indignantly, he tells himself it must be because the boy before him is dead that he’s appreciating him so much, but something in his heart tells him he lost something that he’d one day come to cherish.   
  
He puts a hand to Bokuto’s cheek, lifeless and sunken. He places the bouquet atop hands crossed over the stiff boy’s chest. Belladonna, bittersweet, columbine--pansies, lavender, forget-me-nots. _Forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots, forget-me-nots._ _  
_ _  
_ Akaashi’s tears darken the fabric of Bokuto’s suit as they fall on it. The garment doesn’t seem to suit him at all. Bokuto does not look like a boy who should be confined to black and white. He runs his thumb along the other’s cheekbone. He takes in all that lies before him with an inhale. With an exhale, he turns away, and leaves behind all he never truly had. Akaashi turns and walks away. He has no words to say--he could not begin to make something coherent out of the feelings running through his brain. 

_Forget-me-nots. Forget-me-nots. Forget-me-nots._   
_  
_ _  
  
  
I will not forget you ever, Bokuto Koutarou. _

**Author's Note:**

> that's all! thanks for reading if you stuck around through this. 
> 
> initially, this fic wasn't going to have anything to do with flowers--in fact, it was going to be titled in reference to a song by hozier. however, after deciding on akaashi giving bokuto a bouquet, i couldn't not put some symbolism behind it, and hence it came to be as it is now. 
> 
> the selection of flowers akaashi first brings bokuto, and the ones he leaves in his grave, represent silence, truth, and foolishness. the flowers he hallucinates before dying represent letting go, deception, and thoughts of absence, if anyone was wondering about my flower choice.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed your stay, and that you will never forget the experience you had. ;)


End file.
